Some lovers of religious music consider Heinrich Schütz even greater than Bach, who was born 13 years after Schütz’s death. Schütz was a composer of great spiritual purity, though without Bach’s range. David Hoose and the Cantata Singers centered their entire season on Schütz, in the context of such composers as Bach and Schoenberg. But they ended with an entire evening of him: his rarely heard swan song, Schwanengesang, composed when he was 86 — a series of 13 motets for double chorus and orchestra that include a setting of the 176-verse Psalm 119 plus Psalm 100 (“Shout with joy to the Lord”) and the German Magnificat. The score was thought lost until 1900; it then got lost again before being refound. Its very first performance was in 1981.

This noble effort had chorus and orchestra — plus tenor Jason Sobol, the only soloist — close to their best. And Hoose is a profoundly thoughtful and serious conductor. Never having heard this piece before, I did wonder whether there might be some way he could have italicized the musical contrasts, brought them more audibly to the surface. But maybe that’s not what this austerely private score wants to be — except in that penultimate moment of welcome ecstasy.

The Pops celebrated its 125th anniversary with a newly commissioned tribute to Jack, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy, The Dream Lives On, by composer and movie arranger Peter Boyer. Pops director Keith Lockhart assembled a stellar cast of readers. Cherry Jones narrated a rhymed introduction and conclusion by librettist Lynn Ahrens (lyricist for Ragtime), Robert De Niro read JFK, Ed Harris RFK, and Morgan Freeman Ted. At the press conference, Boyer was asked how much he owed to Copland’s A Lincoln Portrait, another piece in which an orchestra accompanies famous patriotic speeches. This was different, he answered, because it was about three people, not one, and all more recent than Lincoln — though his music was of course “informed” by Copland, Bernstein, and John Williams.

We saw touching film clips, assembled by Susan Dangel and Dick Bartlett, while the Tanglewood Festival Chorus intoned orgasmic wordless notes behind (or over) the speeches. It all sounded like one of those inspirational Oscar segments (Boyer arranged two of those telecasts), and desperate to be moving, with boxes of Kleenex provided on every table. The audience, which included a number of Kennedys, seemed stirred. But the glossy patriotism — more manufactured than composed — didn’t have a nanosecond of originality, surprise, or personality. Only the eloquent delivery of the actors created the illusion that they might actually be participating in what Lockhart kept calling a “historic” event.

We also got Arlo Guthrie (in a “This Land Is Your Land” sing-along) and Broadway’s Brian Stokes Mitchell (repeating the same Ted Kennedy story and two of the corny songs from his Celebrity Series concert just 10 days before), as well as the “National 9/11 Flag,” an honor guard of 9/11 firefighters and, most moving of all, Tara, one of the heroic 9/11 dogs.

Editor's Note: In a previous version of this article, the 9/11 dog Tara was misidentified as "Tanya," and Susan Dangel was misidentified as "Susan Dangle."

Ghost stories For all of the excitement that surrounded Wilco on the Maine State Pier or Sufjan Stevens at Port City Music Hall or the various sold-out Ray LaMontagne shows of the past year, there is no question that last Sunday's Phish show at the Cumberland County Civic Center was the biggest thing to hit our fair city in a very long time.

Wanting more After its triumphant traversal of the complete Béla Bartók string quartets at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Borromeo Quartet was back for a free 20th- and 21st-century program at Jordan Hall, leading off with an accomplished recent piece by the 24-year-old Egyptian composer Mohammed Fairuz, Lamentation and Satire.

The future is now Even with all the promise of the new year ahead, it's hard not to feel a little stiffed in the Future of Mankind department. Here it is, 2010, and there's nary a flying car to be seen.

Swing, etc. The music may suffer plenty of economic slings and arrows these days, but it's still full of thrills galore. As usual, it's looking outside of its orthodoxy for invigorating ideas. Here are titles you truly need.

Beyond Dilla and Dipset With a semi-sober face I'll claim that hip-hop in 2010 might deliver more than just posthumous Dilla discs, Dipset mixtapes, and a new ignoramus coke rapper whom critics pretend rhymes in triple-entendres.

Local flavor Local journalist and acclaimed hip-hop scribe Andrew Martin has corralled a flavorful roster of Rhody-based rap talent on the Ocean State Sampler , 10 exclusive tracks available for free download.

John Harbison plus 10 Classical music in Boston is so rich, having to pick 10 special events for this winter preview is more like one-tenth of the performances I'm actually looking forward to.

Best in their field The jazz scene continues to struggle — along with everyone else — through hard times.

Royal pain Jesse Lortz is always ready to lay something heavy on you. As the primary architect and male half of Seattle indie-folk troubadours the Dutchess & the Duke (who come to T.T. the Bear's Place this Sunday), he spent their 2008 debut, She's the Dutchess, He's the Duke , contemplating loneliness, disgust, and death.